


Cabin

by tcarroll_12



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy Needs A Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ellie Miller (Broadchurch) Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcarroll_12/pseuds/tcarroll_12
Summary: Context: epilogue to a story I may not post here. All you need to know is Hardy almost jumps off a cliff, Paul and Ellie manage to stop him, Angst and Feels ensue and Hardy and Miller take a week off work to relax in a log cabin owned by a friend of the chief super.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 12
Kudos: 78





	Cabin

By the time she comes back up to the loft with the tea mugs, Alec has already dozed off again. He is cocooned in the bedclothes, only his head sticking out, snoring ever so lightly. She places the hot mug on the nightstand quietly, and studies his face. It breaks her heart to see that even in sleep he has no peace; his brow is furrowed just as it usually is when he’s awake and scowling at the world, just slightly less so in his unconsciousness. His face is still too pale and gaunt. She decides to leave him be; goodness knows how much he really needs the rest. It's barely nine, after all; there will be time enough to visit the small village today, regardless of how long Hardy sleeps.

He stirs in the cocoon, briefly scrunching his face; then he swallows and is still again. Much as she wants to, Ellie refrains from even stroking his hair. She studies the poor shattered man a moment longer—it is hard not to picture his agony and negative thoughts wrapped round his soul just as thick and tight as the bedclothes round his thin frame—then takes her own mug and slinks out to the balcony. Behind her, Alec stirs in the cocoon again, but does not wake. 

Only when she’s seated at the patio table does Ellie allow herself to break down.

  


Not ten minutes later does Alec stumble out onto the deck, bare feet thumping against the planks. The cocoon has made his hair stick out wildly, and he squints against the foggy air. The sight is comical enough to make Ellie smile; tears have stopped flowing but her eyes remain reddened, her self-control paltry at best. 

He only registers her presence after he stretches mightily, groaning as he pops several joints in his back, and she sniffs. It’s a watery sniff. _She’s been crying._ When he looks over at her, the last vestiges of sleep shoved away by concern, she has her hands wrapped around her mug, head lowered. Surprisingly, she won’t look at him. 

Her knuckles are white, so tenacious is her grip on the mug. 

He furrows his brow, sits down across the table. All his guilt and self-hatred is immediately forgotten, as is his wont, in the pursuit of ameliorating Ellie’s discomfort. He reaches over, curls one bony hand over hers. She sniffs again. 

“Ellie?” 

The concern in that voice—and her first name on his lips—is more than sufficient to break the dam. She chokes out a sob and the one hand Alec is not touching flies to her mouth. Immediately Alec is out of his seat and at her side, long lanky arms encircling her; as soon as his arms touch her she turns and buries her head in his chest, throwing her own arms around him. He does not dare trying to calm her with empty platitudes or even a “Shh,” only holds her silently as she sobs and trembles like a leaf in his grip. The only thing he does is press a hand to the back of her head, burying its long fingers in her mess of curls, stroking her slowly, softly, with his thumb. For her sake he is able to remain strong, despite his own eyes threatening to spill tears. 

He tries not to think that he is the cause of her anguish, but isn’t quite successful enough to ease his guilt, so he says quietly, “Tell me.” 

Knowing the value of putting words to thoughts from her own extensive counseling, Ellie does so, grateful he is there to remind her, and to be empathetic instead of sympathetic. 

“It’s just… everything,” she whimpers, face scrunching against more sobs. “I want—I want Tom to make good decisions and—and Fred to grow up knowing he’s so _loved_ and—” It is too much; she dissolves into weeping so hard no sound comes out. Alec feels her shake her head against his chest; he remains silent and stoic, an anchor for Ellie’s tempestuous sorrow, much like she has been his anchor ever since that Friday evening at the clifftops. 

He’s about to ask after her sons—her wording had put his parent senses on alert—when she adds in a shaky whisper, _“You.”_

He tries not to freeze, but the admission punches him in the gut with an icy fist. He’s been the cause of her tears in the past for sure, during the Latimer investigation and subsequent trial, but to be so now, after all their relationship has gone through and culminated in, is almost unbearable. 

Thankfully however, before his thoughts can spiral, she elaborates. “I want you to be better—to not—to not _hate_ yourself so much!” He is relieved, not to mention incredibly moved, but the fervor with which she expresses this thought almost renders her speechless. He tightens his grip around her as her own hands clutch at him like a drowning person to a lifeline, and once she has regained some semblance of control, she keeps talking. “You have _so many_ people who respect you, Hardy, not even counting in the office.” Her breath hitches but she barrels on, the passion fueling her only growing as she begs him through her words to understand. “You refuse to see it because you swear you don’t deserve it, but there are people that _like_ you, even. Fred worships the ground you walk on—I mean, for God’s sake, look at you even now! All it takes is for me to be _close_ to crying and you—you just _forget_ about everything else and nothing matters except making sure I’m okay, and yet heaven forbid someone extend that same courtesy to you!” 

Alec is at a loss for words; all he can do is rest his chin on her head, searching for answers in the cabin wall a few feet away. _I’m working on it_ , he thinks, but it sounds too much like a pitifully empty platitude, so in his head it remains. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, anchors in a shared storm, until the awkwardness of Ellie’s position makes her wince and pull away from him to straighten herself. He releases her reluctantly; she rubs a hand over her face and sniffs once more, but the tears are well and gone. She squeezes his hand and goes back to her tea, luckily not gone cold yet. 

“We going to the village today?” Hardy asks lightly after a moment. 

Ellie nods. “Bloody starving after that jag. The Bears Head Inn has a great breakfast menu, from what I’ve seen.” 

Hardy grunts in assent and goes inside to retrieve the tea Ellie’s left for him on the nightstand. On impulse he also takes his journal out. 

The two drink their tea at leisure, enveloped in companionable silence and the crisp stillness of the forest morning.


End file.
